


Choose Your Words

by Stringgoblin



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Blood, Blood and Injury, First Kiss, Gen, Other, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25618021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stringgoblin/pseuds/Stringgoblin
Summary: The Order of Aphrodite don't generally approve of swearing. It's crude, and disrespectful, and generally not fitting for those dedicating themselves to spreading divine love. On the other hand, sometimes life happens and you just have to curse at it a little.Or,Five times the gang swore in front of Azu, and one time she swore in front of them.
Relationships: Azu & Sasha Racket, Azu & Zolf Smith, Azu/Celiquilliton "Cel" Sidebottom, Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam & Azu, Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Azu
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Choose Your Words

**0\. Prologue**

Taking on the life of a paladin had brought with it many changes that Azu found herself learning to adapt to. Some were expected, unavoidable: the need to carry money all the time. The constant work of armour maintenance. Some she couldn’t have anticipated, and struggled to accept: the idea that one must finish one’s own work before helping others. The idea that work could be _owned_ in the first place.

One change that took some effort, but in the end suited her just fine, became apparent one day when she managed to fumble her axe onto her own unarmoured foot, and let loose a word which her mother wasn’t exactly aware that she had taught her. No-one else in the salle spoke Orcish, but the concepts of excrement and parental infidelity carry across quite well between most languages.

That earned her a _very_ stern lecture from the Head of Novices about weapon safety, and another about the concept of divine love, the inherent dignity of all living things, and the duty of a paladin to respect the works of our Lady and not reduce any aspect of life, however mundane, to the level of a coarse word to hurl at inconveniences.

Suitably chastised, Azu put herself to work on actively watching her tongue - not that it had ever been foul, but she had never deliberately set out to keep it clean before. She found a new well of clarity in the practice, of awareness of her self, the world, and her own place and effects on it. It didn’t exactly surprise her to find that all told, she preferred not to swear. Every one of Aphrodite’s lessons had always settled in her heart as though made to fit there.

**1: Sasha**

Dawn was pink and gold here, glowing against the warm yellow walls and cool marble floor. Azu positioned herself in a sunbeam for her morning stretches, luxuriating in it like a cat before venturing out in search of breakfast. The human-sized wing was a late addition to the main house, and she hadn’t quite followed how to get back to the dining room - or was there a separate breakfast room somewhere? She hesitated at the end of the corridor, uncertain.

There was the sound of running water from the bathroom at the corner. Since the only guests here were her friends, it didn’t really occur to her _not_ to try the handle. If it was unlocked, that meant that whoever was in there didn’t mind being asked if they knew the way to breakfast, right?

“Motherf- Zeus’s _bastards_ , Azu, don’t orcs _knock ?”_

“Sorry, sorry!”

Or it could mean that Sasha’s hands were so allover blood that she didn’t want to risk getting any on the door. She lunged over, up to her elbows in a sink full of red, and kicked it shut in Azu’s face.

Azu dithered in the corridor as the water sounds from the bathroom became more aggressive, stuck between her warring instincts to _help_ and _don’t make angry_. Eventually, the taps were turned off and the scrubbing noises slowed, and she mustered her courage to tap on the door.

“Sasha? I’m… sorry for barging in like that, I shouldn’t have, but… I can help? If you want? If you’re hurt…?”

There was a long silence, then a deep breath and a tiny voice that said, “yeah.”

Azu opened the door again, slowly and gently this time.

Sasha was kneeling in front of the sink, forehead resting on the basin, shoulders slumped. Her arms were raised above her head, hands still submerged in the red water. She was shirtless, and her back was a mess of overlapping slashes and wounds, all of them oozing sluggishly. Under the blood, her skin was distinctly grey. She’d wrapped some kind of bandage around her midriff to keep it off her trousers, which was soaked through. The sink contained a shirt that was almost white again. The old cold water trick. Azu knew that one.

“Okay, okay, all right.” It was the voice she used to soothe small children. Sasha didn’t move or speak as Azu carefully settled herself on the floor behind her and ran an assessing eye over the damage. The grey skin was… not a good sign.

“I can’t heal you.”

“No.”

Azu soaked a hand towel under the bath tap, and gently started to dab at the blood. The wounds were already closing up again of their own accord. Sasha shivered slightly. Azu tried to ignore how she could count her ribs, her vertebrae.

“Do they do this every day?”

“Most days.”

Still not looking at her, Sasha hauled the shirt out of the sink and started wringing it out over the bath. She had to turn slightly to do so, and it was a testament to all of her training that Azu didn’t openly wince at the sight of her front.

The Y-incision was neat, and precise, and very, very deep. Azu had seen them before. She’d never seen how one moved when the person breathed, though. That was new. Sasha curled in on herself over the bath, turning fully so that Azu had to scoot around to keep cleaning her back.

They worked in silence for some time. Sasha wouldn’t turn around, so when her back was as bloodless as Azu could make it, she stood and dealt with the sink full of red water. Sasha tugged the towel down off the rim of the sink and started dabbing at her front, then stopped, breathing heavily.

“Azu. Could… could you…?”

Azu knelt down again and took the towel from her. Sasha kept her eyes closed and her shoulders stiff as she worked. 

“Sorry.”

She was so quiet Azu barely heard it.

“Sorry for what?”

“You signed up for, y’know, adventure and justice and saving the world, not… not this fucking mess.”

Azu’s hand slipped a bit. Sasha cracked an eye, the ghost of a smile on her face.

“What, you don’t like cursing?”

Azu could feel her ears burning, and she certainly wasn’t about to explain that what she didn’t _like_ was someone referring to themselves as _a fucking mess_. That seemed a bit much. So she just nodded. Sasha’s face split into a proper grin.

“Alright, well, I can try, but I’m not promising nothing, okay? Sometimes you just gotta swear about stuff. Helps, y’know?”

Azu nodded again.

“I can deal with cursing. And… I can deal with this. I’m here to help people, Sasha, and that means you too. We’re going to get you sorted out.”

“...thanks, Azu.”

Eventually Sasha was as whole as she was going to get, and her shirt was only slightly damp and lightly stained with what could have been tea or mud or the blood of battles long past. Azu stepped out to let her finish changing, fully aware that this was a bit daft but feeling compelled to nonetheless. She emerged after a few minutes, grimacing at the feeling of damp clothing, and having done something to her face that made her look significantly less, well. Dead.

“So why _did_ you just come barging in like that?”

“Oh! I was looking for someone to help me find breakfast.” Azu’s stomach growled suddenly in agreement. Sasha laughed and led the way down the corridor.

**2: Grizzop**

Honestly, Azu still felt a bit silly for launching herself out of the carriage like that, but this was quite nice. Riding a camel down a mountain road, a city spread out below them, the sun on her armour, a gentle breeze taking the sweat off her forehead. It felt like home. 

“Iiiii spy with myyyyy little eyyyyye…”

Visiting home, and giving camel rides to all the smallest children in the village. Azu smiled fondly.

“...somethiiiiing beginning with… S!”

“Sky?”

“No.”

“Sand?”

“Nope!”

“Sand _stone_?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay, uh… I spy with my little eye, something beginning with R.”

“Rocks?”

“Yeah.” Sasha was not necessarily good at this game, but it was nice to hear her enjoying herself. Grizzop took his time thinking, clearly planning a genius play.

“Iiiii spy with myyyyy little eyyyyye, somethiiiiing beginning with… M!”

Azu was not technically playing, but found herself intrigued by this one. They’d not had an M yet.

“Mountain?”

“Nope!”

“Miles of road?”

“Nope!”

“Mist?”

“No - oh that’s actually heat haze, it’s a desert thing.”

“Oh, cool. Umm… no, I dunno.”

“Give up?”

“Yeah.”

“More fucking rocks!”

Sasha laughed so hard she had to catch one arm around Azu to keep from sliding off. Grizzop, tucked in front between Azu’s arms, had no such worries as he flopped back against her, cackling.

“Hm.”

“Oh yeah, sorry Azu. Forgot you don’t like that kind of language.”

“It is… alright.”

They rode in silence for a little while after that.

Late that evening, after a meal and a decent sand scrub, Azu managed to catch Grizzop in the hotel courtyard.

“Grizzop, um. About earlier, I wanted to talk to you.”

“‘Bout what?”

“Earlier, with the eye-spy game?”

“Oh, is this about my foul mouth?” He grinned, showing off the startling extent of it.

“Ye-es. Well. It’s just that when _I_ was training to be a paladin, I was taught…” she attempted a gentler, between-friends version of that admonishing speech from long ago, trying to fit it around what she understood of Artemis and her principles. It boiled down, fundamentally, to their duty as paladins to set an example for others, and the question of whether coarse or disrespectful language was ever _really_ necessary.

Grizzop listened attentively, nodding at the right places and even making noises of agreement when she floated the idea of hunters treating even their prey with respect. At the end, he paused a moment to make sure she was done before responding.

“Okay. I hear you, and I get that this is important to you. But I think you’re missing a key detail here that you ought to consider before talking about _my_ duties as a paladin.”

“Which is?”

“Artemis doesn’t give a fuck.”

Well. Azu had to admit there wasn’t much she could say against that.

**3: Hamid**

The fire was a weedy, smoky thing, but it was better than nothing. Einstein and Hamid had curled up on either side of Azu, both leaning into her warmth as she held her hands over it, occasionally feeding it slivers of ancient crates. Sasha made a strange shape in the doorway, half-lit by the fire and half by the unnatural red sun, the conflicting shadows warping her face and pose. The howls were mostly receding now. Einstein nodded in and out of sleep.

Hamid was scrubbing absently at his trousers, which were covered in reddish dust and torn through one knee. He wasn’t making much progress, given that his hands were just as bad. There was grime caked in deep under his neat fingernails, worked into the usually almost invisible lines of his knuckles.

Another howl sounded, suddenly much closer. Azu tensed. Sasha suddenly had a dagger in each hand. Hamid started, and his hands twisted into claws. They watched the ceiling in perfect silence. Azu felt like a child again, huddled under her bed, counting seconds between lightning and thunder.

Nothing happened for a long moment, and then another howl, much further off. They released a collective breath. Sasha’s daggers and Hamid’s claws disappeared. It took a moment for Hamid to notice that in those few seconds, he’d managed to slash a new tear through his trouser leg.

“Oh… _balls._ ”

“Hamid!”

“What?”

“You - just - I - there’s no call for _that!_ ”

Another long moment’s pause, and then Hamid stuffed a fist into his mouth to muffle his uncontrollable laughter. Maybe it was the shadows, but Azu thought Sasha’s shoulders were shaking, too.

“You - you really -” Hamid gasped for breath, “Azu, we’re in _Rome_ , and we all just nearly _died_ , and we’re being hunted by ghost-dog-demons from some hell plane or other and our _families_ have been _kidnapped_ , and I’ve _completely ruined_ my suit. You’re really telling me this whole situation doesn’t merit an _oh balls_?”

“W-well…” 

“‘S not even a swear,” Einstein mumbled, half-asleep. “You want good swears, you try German. Diese mist Stadt gehst mir voll auf den Sack!”

“Professor!”

This time even Azu couldn’t help laughing. “You see! It’s just weird when some people swear!”

“I can swear in _five_ languages, Azu, come on. I bet orcish has some _great_ swears.”

“Leave off, Hamid, c’mon.” Sasha sounded amused, mostly.

“Okay. Sorry Azu.”

“It’s alright, Hamid. You’re right. Swear about this mess all you want.”

He didn’t, in the end, instead wrapping himself in his cloak, curling into her side and falling asleep surprisingly easily. Azu wrapped their laughter up carefully in her memory as she dozed off. Love follows, she reminded herself firmly. Love carries, even in places like this.

**4: Zolf**

Azu hadn’t really met many sailors in her relatively short life. There wasn’t much call for them in the mountains, and most of her time in Cairo had been spent battened down under sandstorms. She had a second cousin, or something like that, who had gone to sea, and nobody particularly liked talking about him. Sailors were odd folk, she’d been taught. No connection to solid ground, no real home, no _roots_. They even bury their dead in the ocean, and gods if that idea didn’t give her hives. 

She finally understood the phrase “old salt” when she met Zolf. He wasn’t necessarily old, not by dwarf standards, but he seemed so very tired, and no matter how much he protested about not really being a sailor anymore she could practically smell the brine on him, as though his soul had been scoured with it. He spoke rarely and actually _said_ even less, and seemed to channel most of his feelings through cooking. That, at least, Azu could understand. They soon reached a comfortable coexistence based on romance novels and rice noodles, but she could tell he wasn’t really the _friends_ type.

Building the boat had an odd effect on him. He helped enthusiastically, for hours a day, right up until he suddenly downed tools and left the shed with no explanation. Often he would disappear until breakfast the next day, or Azu would half-wake in the middle of the night to the sound of someone settling into the other bedroll in the storage room Cel had put them up in. 

The boat - or the pedalotron, or the stealth catamaran, or whatever it was they were calling it now - was almost finished by the time she came across him in the woods. It was nearly sunset, and Cel had sent her foraging for some kind of mushroom that only appears around dusk. About a hundred feet out from the village, she spotted Zolf pacing through the trees, glaive in hand. He had the gait of someone who had been walking for hours, and intended to continue for hours more. He swung around at Azu’s footsteps, then relaxed.

“Come to join in?” He adjusted his grip and kept walking as he spoke. Azu fell awkwardly into step with him.

“You’re… looking for mushrooms too?”

“Yeah, ‘mushrooms’, sure. What d’you think.” It wasn’t really a question.

“I think,” she began slowly, measuring her words, “that we’ve been lucky not to have seen any more of those bandits in the last week.”

“Yeah. Lucky.” 

“Zolf…”

“Don’t, alright? Just don’t. I know, you’re with Aphrodite and you want to help and it’s your whole _thing_ , but sometimes it’s not like that. Sometimes you just gotta go out into the woods and,” he swung his glaive emphatically, “forage for fucking _mushrooms_ , you know?”

“I - yes. Yes. Alright. Um. Aha!” She plunged off the path towards a large fallen tree covered in tiny lilac mushrooms, deeply grateful for the out. This was clearly a conversation to be had another time. With fewer mushroom metaphors.

**5: Cel**

Azu lay on the floor, eyes closed, focusing very carefully on the physical sensations of _lying down_ and _metal floor_ and _breathing_ and _not dead_ . If she really concentrated, she could feel her Heart of Aphrodite pendant against her skin, a tiny comforting pressure. She could hear the others searching the room and calling out finds, and feel the vibrations through the floor as Skraak and Cel picked their way through the pile of broken metal that had, very recently, come incredibly close to killing her. But she was _not dead_ , she was _here_ and _alive_ and lying on this floor in this dome in this complex at the bottom of the ocean _no nope no not thinking about that_ . She recentered herself on her breathing, thinking about nothing more complex than _in, out, in, out._

“Hey buddy,” the voice was raspy, but doing its absolute best to be gentle. Azu cracked an eye. Cel was squatting on their haunches over her, a concerned look on their face. They hadn’t quite got the hang of talking around tusks yet, she realised, and couldn’t help smiling.

“Hey Cel.”

“You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and sat up, putting their heads about level. “Just. You know. That was a lot.”

“Yeah this is… I gotta say, this is _not_ what I was expecting to deal with when we went off on this thing.” They reached out, hesitantly, and put a hand on her knee. Their claws scraped a little on the metal. “I’m really glad you’re alright. Got really worried for a minute there.”

Azu knew Cel well enough by now to know that there was _stuff_ here, she could hear the old losses and the rejections and the confusion and the loneliness, and more and more these days it felt like everyone she looked at was just a collection of pains needing help, needing _her_ help… she shook her head sharply, dislodging the thoughts. That’s not what this is. This is someone _concerned for you_ . This is a _friend_. She put her gauntleted hand over their clawed one and squeezed, just a little.

“I’m okay. We’re both okay.”

“Yeah.”

Cel sagged a bit, as though their morphed form was a heavy load to carry. Without really thinking, Azu leant forwards and pressed their foreheads together. It felt good to actually touch someone, not just through armour, to feel someone else’s skin on hers and know that they were both alive and, for this one quiet moment, safe.

Cel’s hand shifted slightly under hers, but they didn’t seem alarmed. They closed their eyes and seemed to relax into the touch as well, breathing slowly. That was funny. Azu had always thought this was just an orc thing. 

Then Cel moved their head slightly, unintentionally, and their tusks brushed together. And. Well. That’s a slightly _different_ kind of orc thing. Azu couldn’t help a very small happy noise in the back of her throat, couldn’t help leaning forwards a little more.

It took a second to notice, actually, when that turned into a very slow, careful kiss.

_“Shit!”_

Cel lurched backwards, eyes wide and panicked, wings suddenly spread.

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean - I thought - fuck, I’m sorry -”

“Cel!” Azu caught their hand as they jerked it away, as if her armour was suddenly red-hot. “It’s okay. I - that was - that was me too, okay?”

Azu was acutely aware of the others turning to the commotion and then very conspicuously turning away again. Her ears started to burn. Cel’s face had turned brick-red, but their wings settled, wide eyes turning from panic to amazement. When Azu relaxed her grip, they kept theirs, interlocking their fingers with hers.

“Really? You - that was really okay?”

“Yeah.” And it really was, Azu reflected, a great warmth spreading through her as though she had finally found the calm she had been chasing with her breathing exercises. This felt good, felt right, felt solid and real. She leant her head forwards again and Cel bumped theirs against it, both of them smiling shyly.

“We should talk about this when we’re out of here, probably. But yes. That was really okay.”

“Okay. Yes. To talk about later. I’ll add it to the list.”

Azu laughed, and hauled herself upright.

**+1: Azu**

Azu stretched upwards, and felt her stubble brush the ceiling as she raised herself on her toes. She stretched outwards, and felt stone at the fingertips of both hands. Good grief, this was going to be a long week.

“Ninety-nine boxes of bottles of beer on the wall -”

A _very_ long week. She settled down cross-legged instead, bumping up slightly against Hamid as he sat playing cards with Zolf. They shared an apologetic glance, and she started on wrist stretches.

“Ninety-nine boxes of bottles of beer!”

What else could she even do, with this little space? There was the Harrison Cambell stash, but she was trying to make that last. And it felt so odd to be stationary now, like she should be up and moving and working, not stopping still. She wanted to run, or do jumping jacks, or pullups, something, anything physical.

“You take one down an’ pass it around, ninety- _eight_ boxes of bottles of beer on the wall!”

There was not enough space in here. Or enough air, frankly. Azu had dealt with some pretty foul smells in her time, and this was not necessarily the worst, but it was certainly one of the most _pervasive_. A bubble bath, that’s what she needed. A nice, deep, almost-too-hot bath full of sweet-smelling bubbles, big enough that she could stretch out fully and lie with just her head above the surface and bask. It could be a hot spring in a glade full of songbirds, and she could have a big platter of fruit, and maybe a good book - or a wonderfully bad one - with some sort of waterproofing spell on it...

“Ninety-eight boxes of bottles of beer on the wall -”

Yes, a secret, hidden hot-springs-glade that only she knew about, that she could slip off to when what was really needed was a good proper de-stress. Pocket dimensions, now, those exist. Could you, theoretically, have a private hot spring that you carry around with you, like a bag of holding? Hamid might know. Imagine that. And she wouldn’t even be breaking quarantine then, she could spend a whole _week_ just dozing in a bath and it would be the responsible thing to do!

“Ninety-eight boxes of bottles of beer!”

She should start making a to-do list for when all of this was finally over, Azu decided. If they could handle Shoin, surely there couldn’t be much out there they _couldn’t_ deal with. It was important to find hope in things and try and be optimistic. She was here, Hamid was here, they’d made it off the island alive and freed a lot of innocent kobolds and maybe one day she’d have time to ask Cel if they knew where to find any hot springs around here -

“You take one down an’ pass it around, ninety- _se-_ ”

“Oh my _god,_ Carter, shut the _fuck_ up!”

**Author's Note:**

> Google Translate will give you a slightly sanitised version of Einstein's German, but enough to get the gist of it!


End file.
